Blue Raincoat
by seriousblahblah
Summary: "She said 'please'." "But you should've stayed away." "I couldn't. I couldn't have even planned for this to happen." He saw her in her famous blue raincoat and the shoulder was torn. Bill/Hermione. Affair. Illicit. Angst.
1. Cherries

[Amortentia Challenge: cherry, parchment, chocolate] [Leonard Cohen challenge: "Ah, the last time we saw you, you looked so much older Your famous blue raincoat was torn at the shoulder"] AU. Postwar.

The song that goes with this story and the title is Famous Blue Raincoat by Leonard Cohen, I really recommend it :)

* * *

 **~o~**

 **Blue Raincoat**

 **Bill/Hermione**

 **[Song: Famous Blue Raincoat - Leonard Cohen]**

 **~o~**

* * *

"Why did you love her?" the psychiatrist asked as she crossed her legs and sat across the tall, brooding young man with dark red hair in a ponytail. He had an earring in one ear, which seemed to be the fang of some unknown creature. It hung there on his ear like a blade, a warning.

Bill took in a deep, rattling breath. The recent full moon made his young, handsome but scarred face ultimately seem more sombre than it actually was.

"Because she said 'please'," he answered finally. "Because she had eyes that told me she needed me."

"But she was your brother's," the psychiatrist is quick to correct him.

Bill nodded. And his large, scarred hands threaded their long, strong fingers together. The hands that have fought werewolves and wove spells through countless cursebreakings and unlocked bank vaults. And yet couldn't solve one woman.

"And you were married too."

He nodded again. It's clear he wishes it wasn't so. Yet, as he explained before, it didn't change anything or the disastrous effects of what started.

"Tell me how it happened."

It was a command, not a question. So Bill Weasley took in another long breath and shook the red locks out of his eyes as he peered across at his inquirer, his investigator. He really no longer had a choice about being here or answering these questions that had so long been in the dark, withheld from everyone, including his family.

"I met her—I mean _really_ met her, not just someone my brother married and whom I scarcely saw—when she came over to drop off a cherry pastry for my wife. Fleur had been sick with Veela fever, for the second time. It was completely the wrong time—to fall in love with another woman. But Hermione appeared at my doorstep, out of the rain, still in her healer robes...I still remember, she had on a blue raincoat that was torn at the shoulder and she lifted up a box.." Bill wiped away a stray tear that hasn't really formed or fallen. "...of these cherry tarts." He paused. "Of course, she brought healing potions too, but it was the cherry that stood out to me. She looked so simultaneously broken and cheerful as she offered them, trying to please everyone, trying always to do the right thing."

"You feel Hermione was a perfectionist, who always did things for others? Thinking of others before herself?"

"Oh completely. I don't think she'd ever done a selfish thing in her life before...before me..." His hand rubbed at his chiselled, stubble covered jawline.

"And why did the cherries stand out to you? You seem to remember them particularly."

"...it matched her lips." He raised a heavy, auburn brow as if studying his own intentions in retrospect. "I'd never noticed how red they are. How beautiful she was. I'd never really seen her as a woman before, though she was only a few years younger than me. She had grown. "

The psychiatrist cleared her throat, crossing her legs again. "So you thought of Hermione from that day?"

"Yes. I guess you could say that."

"Were they violent thoughts in nature?"

"No," he said firmly and his eyes lowered to the floor again.

"You'd never had sexual thoughts of your sister-in-law before?"

He paused before nodding. "Never. It had never crossed my mind. I'd never thought of myself of a cheater or capable of..." He paused again to stem real tears now, tears from causing a divorce and family turmoil within the close-knit Weasley family. Real anguish. Real tears. " _Merlin_. I _didn't._ "

The psychiatrist has seen everything, yet she's never seen a man so destroyed. And simultaneously liberated from his own family and expectations.

Bill continued. "I didn't plan to break up my family. I didn't plan to destroy what I had. I love my family, I still do. But then everywhere I went after that, it was like the scent of cherries followed me. And I kept on thinking of her."

"Dominating thoughts?"

"Yes. I don't know why. But with Hermione, with her, it was always something violent and almost uncontrollable that I wanted. I wanted to control her for a moment and make her stop being so selfless, to make her see what she was. What Ron couldn't show her."

"What was that? What did you need to show her she was?"

"A desirable woman. Someone worth dying over."

"You could've done something to stop it, confess to your wife, admit your feelings, or just avoid contact with your sister-in-law. Yet you didn't."

" _No."_ His words were a cold, bitter admission of guilt. _"I didn't."_

.

.


	2. Parchment and tears

**Chapter 2: Parchment and tears**

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[note: there are hints of ptsd hermione from bellatrix's torture in malfoy manor in this story, because I think that event would leave lasting damage in the long run, even if Hermione hid it and was strong in the immediate afteraffects. Also Hermione, with her muggle background might have sought help from a muggle or wizard psychiatrist to deal with it.][prompt: parchment]

* * *

~o~

"Were you aware of my patient's mental fragility?"

"No."

"But you said she was the most simultaneously broken and cheerful person you'd ever seen?"

"I had no idea. After the war, we all had our scars." Bill rubbed at his face, where his own scars lay for all the world to see.

The psychiatrist shifted uncomfortably. She cleared her throat and held tightly onto her Quick Quotes quill.

"So you didn't think your presence or interference in her marriage might have a detrimental effect?"

"I am, _was_ , her brother-in-law, I didn't mean to have an affair or interfere with anything." He corrected himself. "I think she just seemed sad."

"And you were attracted to her?"

"Isn't that what all men want?"

"You tell me, Mr. Weasley. You're under evaluation here."

"Of course."

~o~

"When did you see her again?"

"I didn't want to see her again, I didn't have any plan to sabotage any of our marriages," he grits out the words. His jaw clenching defensively. "Though I couldn't stop my attraction to her sexually, she was older now and alluring, I did not intend to seek her out."

"I'm not implying you did intentionally. But you did see her again."

"Yes."

"And that is when it started?"

His eyes flickered, the blue in them darkening and his voice began to sound more like a growl, feral and trapped like an animal. "I already told you about the cherries, that's when it really started."

"But you didn't actually say or do anything til you saw her again, at the bookstore, was it?"

"It was a complete accident. A coincidence."

"You didn't follow her in."

"No."

"So what happened then, Bill?" She raised her eyebrows, prompting him to be a little forthcoming. Curiosity getting the better of her now.

His large hands ran through his thick, red hair and for a moment, a flicker of a smile returns to his worn face.

"I ran into her. Nearly knocked her over. She smelled of parchment and wet ink, or maybe that was just the smell of her suitcase filled with her work papers. Her little hands still had ink blotches on them. Dunno. But Hermione's wide brown eyes looked up at me and she seemed startled."

"Why do you think she seemed startled, Bill?"

"I suppose it's because I had my hand on her."

"Why were you touching her?"

"I just had my hand on her hand. I didn't do anything wrong."

"But you knew you wanted her."

"Yes." He sniffed. "And I began to presume she was having the same thoughts of me."

"And if she wasn't, was that not your own supposition and an egotistical one to make?"

The grin returned to his eyes, seeping down into his lips as he spoke and his eyes dilated again. "No.  
He shook his head. "I could smell her. My injuries from a werewolf mean I have ultrasensitive hearing and acute sense of smell. She was sexually aroused by me, not before, but after I neared her."

The psychiatrist crossed and uncrossed her legs several times to try regain her composure in her chair. Her fingers digging into the quill, holding tightly to it. "So what did you do?"

Bill Weasley took in a deep breath and let out a slow, anguished sigh.

"I invited her over for coffee. It was innocent enough, Hermione wanted to discuss werewolf policies and laws with me. We saw each other for a few more visits, and generally descended to talking about general topics rather than just the law. But by the fifth visit, then it quickly spiralled out of control. Because I was by far more in love with her than ever and kept on looking at her sad, large brown eyes and wondering what I could do to help. ' _Why couldn't she see her own worth?'_ I kept thinking."

"Why didn't you see other means to helping her? Or did you just help yourself? I don't see how you thought an affair would be any help to Hermione," the psychiatrist's words were deeply accusing.

"You can think of it that way. But it was not my motive. I did want to help."

"Did you lose control, or did she? Who crossed the line, first?"

Bill narrowed his eyes, and even now there is a flash of swirling amber in them.

"We both did. She asked to see my scars. My injuries. I took off my clothes. Just my shirt and then her hands were running along my scars. Examining me. She cried to see how I'd been hurt...and yet sympathy was not all that Hermione felt for me. Far from it."

His knuckles beat against the wood grain of the chair, soothing and pounding the rough grain.

"I could smell her getting wetter by the second as we sat together. I knew what she wanted...She wanted me."

~O~


	3. Chocolate and Sins

[prompt: chocolate]

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~O~

"She spoke of voices in her head." He pauses. "I wasn't sure what to think of it at the time."

He is close to tears.

"Do you think she told Ron?"

"No, that bugger has never been understanding about anything."

"Why are you being aggressive to your brother? Were you always this way towards him?"

He laughs with true mirth. "No. I wasn't always this way towards him. Though Ron is the reason I'm here now, isn't it?"

"There's still a possibility you may go free. Otherwise, the sentence is two years in Azkaban."

"Yes, that's what worries me."

"For your own sake?"

"No," he looks her squarely in the eyes. "For Hermione's sake. She needs me."

"She'll have me. I can help her."

"Is that really all she needs? She had you before didn't she?" his words are cutting.

"Why don't we just go back to what you did."

"I didn't commit any crime," Bill is quick to add.

"No, I believe it's possible you didn't, but we'll need to go over what happened step by step."

"Fine." He prostrates his hands. "Ask me anything."

~o~

"Let's go back to the fifth visit, where you said it escalated. She took off your shirt."

"She was feeling my scars."

"Hmm-mmm," the psychiatrist nods and writes something down in her notebook. "What were doing prior to that?"

"We were drinking chocolate, hot chocolate, and she noticed I was more tired than usual. I told her about my struggles with the full moon and she told me about the voices. Both incidents of the war, I suppose."

"Because you'd been scratched by a werewolf years ago and she'd been tortured? But she heard Bellatrix's voice in her head sometimes, you never heard Fenrir's voice in your head?"

"No."

"So you didn't think your injuries were different? More physical?"

"I wasn't sure what I thought, except here was a person as injured as me, in her own way, and needing me, and that is what we had in common. You should have seen the way she dragged her fingertips over my scars while crying."

"Because you were physically injured and she was mentally injured?"

"No, because she cared."

"You didn't feel you took advantage of her."

"No, quite the contrary." He elaborates, and his hand drags through his long hair again. The single earring in his ear shining. "She needed me."

~O~

"You said," the psychiatrist pauses to reread from her notes, something which pinkens her cheekbones," she was, I quote, 'wet'...I'm not sure how you can speak so plainly of a woman's body?"

"I am a part werewolf. I don't see how I can speak more plainly, I can smell and sense things a human cannot."

"You could have stopped."

"She didn't want it to stop."

"It was your responsibility."

"Why? Because I'm part werewolf and part of her brain is destroyed. Neither of us were, or are, completely in our senses."

"But Hermione would never have done anything unless you acted first?"

"I didn't say I acted first."

"You said you _smelled_ her. That is not an offensive move on her part."

"While she had her hands on my chest. Stroking my skin."

"Still not an offensive move."

"No, but if you knew the effect it had on me. It was close to just ten hours after the full moon. The wolf inside me wanted its mate, to consume her."

"What did you do about it?"

"I grabbed her by the hips and carried her over the desk. I put my hand underneath her skirt. I just wanted to feel what she felt for me...It drew me wild. Hermione moaned and told me to do it again. She spoke in little whispers, her long hair falling over her eyes."

"This was consensual."

"Yes."

.

"You had sex with her."

"No."

"You had sex with her?"

"No. I touched her. We were clothed."

"Semantics, Mr. Weasley."

"I didn't want to cheat on my wife."

"So you stroked your sister-in-law while she lay prostrate on a desk?" the psychiatrist is tempted to laugh. Indeed, she does.

He hisses. "Because she said 'please'. _Please Bill_ and she told me what Ron had done."

"What had Ron done?"

"I don't think you'd understand."

"Try me."

~o~


	4. Traces of sadness

_[prompt: True love leaves no traces If you and I are one It's lost in our embraces Like stars against the sun - Leonard Cohen]_

~o~

"What had Ron done?"

Bill rubs at the stubble along his jaw. "I don't want to make myself sound better than him, but the truth is that Ronald injured her in his own way. Ron has never been the sensitive type, each failing or flaw he made seem ten times worse. He always wanted perfection, and Hermione was never perfect."

"Perfection?"

"He couldn't handle her. He didn't take care of her. Or the traces that the war left on her."

"How can you be so certain of this? What about your own wife, you don't think she was neglected."

"No, Fleur was never neglected."

"How so?"

"You ever meet a woman that doesn't have any scars or bruises or physical marks on the outside, but on the inside, it's like someone has completely chipped away at their self-esteem because nothing they ever do is right or up to standard? Hermione had the eyes of someone who couldn't even see her own worth anymore."

"So you thought you could fill in for your brother?"

"I wanted to make her happy. To show her her worth."

"At the expense of your own marriage."

"I was already in love with her. I think it was the sad beauty of her eyes, like she'd seen too much but could still hold on and laugh at the small things," his voice drifts, his breathing growing rougher.

"Yet you said before you had violent thoughts of her?"

"Partially. Because the animal side of me wanted to possess her, to mark her as my own."

"But you're not a full werewolf, so you cannot actually mark anybody."

"No."

"So it was just a fantasy."

"Yes."

"A violent fantasy?"

"I just never wanted to possess anyone more. If only to show Hermione she was worth possessing. Worth fighting for."

~o~

"You don't think it's cruel to try to possess someone?"

Bill shakes his head, complete certainty there in his eyes. "I wouldn't call it violent to seek to possess someone who felt totally at loss and in a void, to reclaim them and bring them back to life. That is what I sought to do with Hermione. To bring her back here," he taps at his own forehead.

"Are you aware of the seriousness of the charges brought against you by Ron? He says you attacked his wife and tried to make her a werewolf?"

He laughs off these charges. "Ron is mad with jealousy. The only thing I did was kiss and lightly bite my lover. Ron is just angry that it wasn't him."

"You don't think there is more to the charges, that you may have taken advantage of Hermione's fragile state?"

"No, I had no idea. And I don't think Ron is doing Hermione any favours by causing this added distress to her, by jailing me. Ron knows she needs me, that's why he wants to _hurt us both."_

There is the sound of wood snapping as he stands up from the chair and paces the room, like a caged soul separated from its mate.

The psychiatrist's eyes follow his lithe, muscular form, studiously, as if she is observing something part wild.

"We have to continue the interview. I'm sorry, Bill. You won't like the questions."

"I know. Just ask me whatever it is that the Ministry wants you to ask me. They already see me as a monster."

~o~

"Have you always been a sexually violent person?"

"No."

"You never desired to bite or mark your wife, Fleur?"

"No. And ex-wife."

"So why do you think you became violent with Hermione?"

"I didn't."

"You bit her neck. We have this on record."

He pauses to steeple his hands together. "The bite was symbolic and I asked Hermione first. I'm not a full werewolf, I cannot turn anyone with my scratches or bites."

"But it was enough for Ron to press charges."

"Ron wanted vengeance for taking Hermione away from him," Bill mutters quietly, his fingers twitching for a cigarette. "That was all it was to him. A petty way of getting at his older brother for marking his wife as his own."

"You do admit he would be angry?"

"Of course. I was claiming Hermione as my own and he could see it right on her neck." He smirks fondly. "They say true love leaves no traces and it's true until then, our affair remained hidden. But Ron didn't even care, did he? He didn't see her shining eyes, or her glowing skin or how her lips were fuller like they'd just been kissed. I never left a mark on Hermione before but I wanted him to see that because he didn't even notice the other things til I placed that mark on her neck. I wanted him to see that. He completely neglected her, and I was taking over."

"You wanted to be discovered by that point?"

 _"Yes."_

 _~o~_


End file.
